I keep reading this camera will record onto miniDV?

[Luis Caffesse]

[Paul] “I keep readin that this will record onto minDV and have ONE P2 slot…..why would you record to minDV??? Is that even possible??? “

Well, I suppose we won’t know for certain until a week from now, but my 2 cents says it won’t have a tape drive.

A miniDV tape drive wouldn’t do much good.
You would not be able to record DVCProHD onto tape, as the tape can’t be spun fast enough. I suppose Panasonic could release a new ‘small shell’ HD tape to be used with the camera, but I seriously doubt that will happen.

Jan has mentioned before that the DVCProHD tape transport requires 16 record heads working in pairs. At $800 a pair, that’s $6400 just for an HD tape transport.

So, if it does include tape…is would be only for SD work, and more than likely only for DV (or DVCPro).

So I suppose it is possible.
But is it useful? Not to me.

Is it likely? I don’t think so.

But we’ll see in a week.

Luis Caffesse
Studio 3 Productions, Inc.
Austin, Texas

[Toke]

Luis:”Jan has mentioned before that the DVCProHD tape transport requires 16 record
heads working in pairs. At $800 a pair, that’s $6400 just for an HD tape transport.”

And I have mentioned that sony made a vcr that could read and write to dvcam with
miniDV tapes and with 100Mbps (4x speed) several years ago.

Maybe panny could, if they wanted to, develop a miniDVCproHD deck that could record
at least 40Mbps to miniDV tape.

Anyway it’s cheaper to leave all tape decks away…

[Graeme Nattress]

The SPX 800 doesn’t do tape. Why should the HDX200 do tape? The whole idea of P2 is to get away from tape. A single P2 slow would be suicidal for P2 – I’d hope for 3 slots, but you could just about use 2 slots.

I know Sony did 4xDVCAM playback for news ingest over SDTI – but I don’t think it recorded at that speed though, only playback.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP

[Deleted User]

I’ll be very surprised if the new Panasonic palmcorder does _not_ include a miniDV tape transport.

These days, a miniDV transport is essentially free, adding almost zero cost to a camera. Likewise, a miniDV transport can be quite small. A miniDV transport adds little size, weight or power consumption to a camera. When not in use, you’d hardly know it’s there.

Even if you rarely or never use miniDV, it wouldn’t be much of a hardship to have it built-in, and in many cases it’ll be quite useful to have. For example, for people who plan to normally shoot to the P2 card most of the time, being able to use miniDV occasionally as a “cheap”, “quick & dirty” recording medium may prove handy. If the miniDV transport is built-in, it’ll always be available, ready to use.

It’s extremely unlikely the palmcorder will be able to record anything other than generic DV25 onto the miniDV tape (maybe it could also record DVCPRO-25? I don’t know.) Jan C. has said a DVCPRO-50 & DVCPRO-100 transport is way too exensive for this cam’s price point, so that’s ruled-out.

Myself, I’d be much more inclined to buy the P2 palmcorder if it included a miniDV DV25 transport. I suspect many other potential buyers would value this, too, especially since Panasonic would likely charge very little for its inclusion in the design.

Just my guess; I could be wrong.

All the best,

– Peter

Just a friendly reminder to all: Please consider filling-in your COW user profile information so we have a better idea who you are, where you’re from, and so forth. It’s the friendly thing to do. Thanks!

[Toke]

From Sony’s Brochure:
“The DSR-85 has a high speed tape dubbing function which
allows you to make a dub of the recorded DVCAM tape
information (video/audio/sub code) along with the ClipLink Log
Data contained in the memory IC in the DVCAM cassette tape.
The dubbing is accomplished via the SDTI(QSDI) interface and
the RS-422A. Dubbing can be done at normal or four times
normal speed and is initiated by the menu button on the
subcontrol panel.”

And this was 1998-99.

I remember that word “dubbing” was used only for tape-2-tape copies.

Sadly (but normally) Sony kept these QSDI secrets my themselves so
they never got popular.

I’ve also understood that tape mechanisms can always write at the
same speed than read.

I have just got tired to these slogans in many of these forums that
“only dvcpro tape can handle 100Mbps” and “you need 16 heads”.

Well dsr-85 had 14 heads and I’m not saying it’s tape mechanism was
very small, but it is clear that if manufacturers would have seen
developing higher bitrate miniDV system profitable,
they could have made it.

Today 3ccd consumer cameras can have chassis volume less than litre.
It wouldn’t be too hard to build let’s say under 4 litres chassis
with higher bit rate miniDV-transport.

If panny would sell 100,000 cameras of those, then those 16 heads’
price would be less than 1/10 of what they are today.
I think this is just matter of getting to mass market or staying
in the “broadcast” niche.

[Graeme Nattress]

Yes, but the DSR-85 was a nearly $20,000US deck! https://www.roscor.com/products/pdf/Sony/dsr85.pdf
Seems that it will record and play at 4x, which is fairly cool if you ask me.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP

[Vincent Rice]

There won’t be a tape transport. It would totally negate the point of the camera and Panasonic’s strategy.

[Toke]

And cheapest dvcproHD camera at the moment costs over $40k.
So what’s your point?

[Deleted User]

[Vincent Rice] “There won’t be a tape transport. It would totally negate the point of the camera and Panasonic’s strategy.”

I’d appreciate if you’d explain how including a miniDV tape transport in the new P2 palmcorder would “totally negate the point of the camera and Panasonic’s strategy”?

I’m OK with your disagreeing with my contrary opinion, but I’d appreciate hearing why you believe what you say so strongly.

All the best,

– Peter

Just a friendly reminder to all: Please consider filling-in your COW user profile information so we have a better idea who you are, where you’re from, and so forth. It’s the friendly thing to do. Thanks!

[Barry Green]

I think his point might be that it might be a little optimistic to expect a $20,000 tape drive in a sub-$10,000 camera.